


Stone by Stone

by natlet



Category: Oz (1997)
Genre: Oz Magi, Oz Magi 2009
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-06 08:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natlet/pseuds/natlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McManus isn't the only one who ever falls apart. (See notes for warnings.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stone by Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cmk418](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=cmk418).



> Warning: Death of non-canon character. Deals with alcoholism.
> 
> For cmk418 in the Oz Magi '09 exchange. Thanks to Izzy for the last-minute beta and to Rustler for responding promptly and courteously to my ridiculous panic.
> 
> Prompt: _Hurt/comfort, only Sean's the one hurting_

It's a shit day.

Starts off shit - his alarm doesn't go off, six inches of sleet and an overzealous plow trap his car in his parking spot, can't find his shovel, borrows one from the blonde with the kid two doors over and breaks it - and it doesn't get any better. Em City's in an uproar when he gets there, late, sometime between breakfast and work detail; Alvarez and Poet posturing and hollering at each other from across the room, Armstrong and Mineo trying to stuff them back into their pods, Beecher grinning out from behind the Plexiglass with that wild-eyed crazy time look on his face, cheers and shouts and catcalls everywhere. McManus keeps his head down, hurries for the stairs.

He leaves the blinds closed in his office, drops into his chair, cradles his styrofoam coffee cup close, hunching around it. Shit day, he thinks savagely, glaring at the files on his desk. Wonders, sort of vaguely, if anyone would notice if he left a little early. Or a lot early. Like, say, after lunch. Or now. He sighs and pushes back from his desk, stands, peers out hesitantly between the slats of the blinds. Looks a little quieter - though, he realizes, it's only because everyone's back in their pods and he's behind a half-inch of glass. He can hear the noise faintly through his closed door, when he listens for it - reverberating, echoing, rolling in waves across Em City and down the hallway and through the whole prison. They're doing the fucking pounding thing again. The first time it was moving, the second time it was sad, and now - now that Cyril O'Reily's long dead, now that they're doing it to be shits - it just gives him a headache. Murphy's in his regular spot at the control tower; McManus watches him for a minute, mouth moving as he shouts orders to Mineo and the guys, hands planted on the railing and shoulders tense. He glances up, and for a second McManus is sure he's looking straight at him - but it's a long way across the cell block and there's a lot going on between the guard tower and his office and it's a stupid thought anyway.

McManus turns away from the window, sighs, scrubs a hand over his face. Thinks, maybe they'll settle down by lunch.

He takes a sip of his coffee. It burns his tongue, and he almost chucks it against the wall.

Shit day.

*

By lunch, they're not settled down. McManus cracks his office door for a second, slams it shut again. Christ, how can they keep up the goddamn banging this long? The CO's are clustered at the guard tower; even Murphy's starting to look a little desperate. McManus thinks maybe he should do something nice, bring them some coffee or donuts or a pizza. If he can bring himself to leave his office.

He's perched on the edge of his desk, glaring out the window like he can make them shut up by force of will alone, when his phone rings. "McManus," Quernes says, silk over amusement. "Come on up."

Briefly, he considers telling Quernes he's trapped in his office. Figures Quernes wouldn't believe it. "On my way."

The banging's slowing down, it seems like. "I'll leave you in there all day, I don't give a shit," he hears Murphy hollering from near the gate as he goes down the stairs, taking them two at a time. "Or maybe, if you settle the fuck down by the time I get back, you can come out and watch TV." Murphy gives him a small, tight smile as the gate opens, follows him out through it, stops him just around the corner with a hand on his shoulder. "Wait," he murmurs.

He waits. Slowly, the noise trickles off, finally stops completely, and seconds later they hear the click-woosh of the pod doors opening. "See?" Mineo's voice is faint from the guard tower, but he sounds relieved. "Was that so fuckin' hard?"

McManus grins, and Murphy shakes his head. "One of those fuckin' weeks," he says. "You wanna grab lunch with me?"

"Another time," he says. "I've been summoned to appear before Quernes."

Murphy laughs. "Good luck with that," he says, waving as he turns toward the lobby.

*

McManus flees Quernes's office, not caring what the fucking secretary thinks. Can't stand to be in there with him another second, all riddles and sharp eyes, leaving him feeling like he's got something with too many legs crawling around between his shoulderblades. He makes it most of the way back to Em City before he gets himself convinced there's nothing there.

He's settled back behind his desk, frowing at his stack of paperwork and sort of vaguely wondering where this paperless society they've been promising him for the past five years is, when his phone rings. Again. He glances at it warily, thinking please not Quernes, reaches out to pick it up with only a little hesitation.

"You seen Murphy?" Mineo asks. McManus spins his chair, peers out through his blinds, sees Mineo standing by himself at the bank of monitors. "He shoulda been back from his break twenty minutes ago."

"No," he says. "I'll go find him."

Mineo makes a noise that's somewhere between a sigh and a grunt. "Hurry up," he says. "Goddamn back's killing me."

*

He finds Murphy in the staff room, finally, after it feels like he's been looking fucking forever. "Hey," McManus says, "There you are, everyone's looking for you - " Pauses, actually looks at Murphy. He's hunched over in his chair, elbows on his knees, staring blankly at his cell phone like it's something he's never seen before. McManus frowns. Something's not right. "Sean?"

Murphy looks up, slow, sluggish, and McManus is thrown by what's in his eyes - bone-deep sorrow, pain and confusion and it's such a strange, alien look on him that McManus doesn't know what to do. "Yeah." Almost a whisper, his voice low and flat.

"What's going on?" He pulls out a chair, drags it closer, drops into it and leans toward Murphy. "Are you - "

"Pop died," Murphy says, quietly.

Jesus. McManus struggles against the urge to reach out and touch him, just touch him. Suddenly, his shit day doesn't seem so shit in comparison. "Oh my God. When?"

"Last night. He, ah - " Murphy blows out a long breath. "He went off the road, hit a couple trees and flipped the car. Paramedics said he broke his neck, he was probably dead before he even - " Murphy's voice cuts out and he shakes his head.

"Jesus." He does reach out, now, brushing his fingers tentatively over the soft skin on Murphy's forearm. "Is your mom - "

"Yeah, she's all right. She wasn't with him, she was home." Murphy tosses the phone on the table, leans back in the chair with a long sigh, scrubs a hand over his face. "Ah, fuck."

"I'm sorry, Sean, I - "

"Don't be. He was wasted, he had it coming. It's just lucky he didn't take anyone else out with him." Murphy tries to smile; it's a thin, tight expression, and it makes something turn over in McManus's stomach, tug hard at his insides. "Way he treats himself, it shoulda happened years ago."

He almost, almost corrects Murphy's tenses, but he stops himself in time. "Yeah, but still - "

"He was a drunk, Tim," Murphy says. No passion in it at all, just resignation, exhaustion. Like it was almost a relief that he was finally dead.

He was still your father, McManus almost says, but he chokes it back at the last minute. It wouldn't help, and he's not sure Murphy would hear him, anyway. "You should go home," he says instead. "I'll talk to Quernes, I'm sure he'll let you use some of your vacation time, don't worry about it, just - "

Murphy nods slowly. "Yeah, I'll drive out in the morning, give Ma a hand with - with everything. Christ." He sighs and hefts himself to his feet, slowly, like it takes more energy than he's got. "I gotta get back," he says. "Joe's probably losing his fuckin' mind waiting on me."

Tim doesn't give a shit about how late Mineo is for his break. Murphy looks like he's already got his mind made up, and for a second Tim just stares at him, dumbly, wondering how to stop him from going back to the fucking cell block, wondering if he should. He doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to help - he's lost, reeling, totally out of his depth, and for a selfish, crazy second he thinks, this isn't how it's supposed to go, I don't know how to do this, I can't do this - but Sean's always there for him and he figures, anything will be better than nothing. "It'll be okay," he says, wanting to wince at how stupid and useless the words sound, hanging there in the air between them.

Murphy just nods, turns, walks slowly away. McManus watches him go.

*

He's working late - not out of some sense of devotion to his job, to the mountains of transfer requests and time sheets and other bullshit that clutter his desk, but because he's so fucking far behind he'll never catch up, not if he does paperwork twenty-four hours a day from now until he's dead - when his phone rings. McManus blinks at it for a long couple seconds before he puts down his pen and reaches out, picks the phone up. "Hello?"

"Tim."

Sean's voice is shaky and wrong and it's setting off alarm bells in his brain. He leans forward, paperwork forgotten. "Sean? Are you - "

"Come get me," Sean says, and now Tim recognizes the sounds in the background, exaggerated voices and glasses clinking and a jukebox, and he's already moving, out of his chair and tugging on his jacket. Fuck the paperwork.

"Where are you?"

*

He finds Murphy outside, sitting on the steps up to the bar, head in his hands. Tim pulls the car up close, rolls the window down. "McManus taxi service," he calls. "You need a lift?"

Murphy looks up, stands slowly; he staggers a little between the steps and the car, trips over a crack in the sidewalk or his own feet and almost goes down, catches himself. He leans heavily on the car door as he fumbles for the handle, yanks it open. "Thanks, Tim."

"No problem." Murphy reeks, whiskey and cigarettes, bar-smell; it's not exactly warm outside but McManus leaves the windows down anyway, steers the car out of the parking lot, toward Murphy's apartment complex on the edge of town. He's too quiet, slumped in on himself, and McManus steals glances at him, quick at first, longer once he realizes Murphy's not going to notice, that he's barely even here.

It's a long time before he says anything, and when he does, McManus can barely hear him over the rush of air through the open windows, the sounds of the road whizzing by underneath them. "When we were in tenth, maybe eleventh grade, I used to stay up late doin' homework in the kitchen." He's slurring, words tangling up together, tripping over each other. "Only place I could - get my books and shit spread out, get my thoughts to line up right." He fiddles with the controls on the door, rolling the window up, then back down, and again McManus fights the urge to reach out. "Pop would come home. Two, three in the morning, usually. Smelling like a goddamn brewery. Sometimes he'd sit down, help me for a while. Not that he was ever sober enough to understand so much as basic fuckin' addition."

Jesus, Sean. His hands tighten on the steering wheel until he can barely feel it any more, knuckles gone white, palms numb from the pressure. "That must've been hard on you."

Murphy laughs, a little. "Hard? Nah. I mean, the first time, maybe, but after that I figured out lettin' him do my homework wasn't gonna get me anywhere fast." Murphy hangs his elbow out the window, spreads his fingers in the breeze. "We'd just - talk, about sports, girls, school, his work. At first, I didn't - I'd be pissed at him, showing up wasted, fucking up my homework. Used to think, who the fuck does he think he is, treating my brothers and I like shit all week, then coming in, trying to make nice in the middle of the goddamn night."

Pause. Feels like hours pass. Years. McManus waits.

"And then," Murphy says, voice dropping even further, almost down to a whisper now, "I figured out it was - it was his way of tellin' me he gave a shit. Could only do it when he was piss-drunk, and he still never said the fuckin' words, but..." Murphy sighs; it's a heavy sound, carrying the weight of lots of secrets, lots of years.

Tim does reach out, then; can't stop himself any more, rests his hand on Sean's leg just above his knee, squeezes gently. He's just about to let go when Sean's hand comes down to cover his; hesitantly, tentatively, but enough that he doesn't pull away.

*

McManus parks in front of Sean's apartment, hesitates for a second before he switches the car off. "Sean?"

There's a pause before Sean answers. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm going."

Tim bites his lip. "Hang on," he says, and then he's out of his seat and around the car, pulling open Sean's door, waiting. Sean tries to act like he doesn't need it, swings his feet to the ground and hefts himself upright, but he stumbles and lurches forward, would go down if Tim wasn't there to catch him. "Jesus, you okay? Watch it."

"'m all right," Sean says, but he's hanging on hard to Tim's arm and Tim gets an arm around his waist, hangs on as they make their way around the side of the building, up the steps to Sean's second-floor apartment. He waits, watches as Sean digs in his pocket, searches for his keys, produces them finally with a wobbly half-smile and gets the door open. Inside, it's dark and cold; they move down the hallway together, a strange four-legged beast tripping and bouncing off the walls, to the living room, where Sean lets go of him, takes the last few stumbling steps to the couch on his own. He collapses onto the worn leather with a sigh, curling into himself. For a minute, Tim stands awkward and unsure in the center of the room, looking at the curve of Sean's shoulder, watching his back rise and fall with his breaths. At first, it's slow, steady, but as he stands there it gets ragged, uneven, and Tim thinks - oh, fuck it, just - takes the last couple steps and perches on the couch next to him.

He reaches out, puts a tentative hand on Sean's shoulder, and that's all it takes. Sean makes a tiny choked noise - and it's so strange, so alien coming from him, from hard as nails Sean Murphy, who Tim's pretty sure has never had a vulnerable second in his life, that Tim shivers, almost pulls back - and squirms until he's got his head in Tim's lap, pushes his face into Tim's stomach, and he's not going to say anything but Tim's pretty sure he sees wetness on Sean's face. "Ah, fuck, Sean." He curves an arm around Sean's back, gets the other under his head, pulls him in. Sean curls into him like a puppy or a kid, hand fisting in Tim's shirt. He can feel Sean's mouth through the fabric, open against his chest; there's no sound but his breath warms Tim's skin in hot, long waves, a silent keening, coming from somewhere deep and dark and secret, a place he didn't even know Sean had in him until just now.

This is something new, to him; Murphy's shoulders shaking under his hands, his whole body tense and uncontrolled, the way he's rocking a little, pushing against Tim in a desperate, uneven rhythm, and Tim doesn't have a fucking clue what to do so he just holds on. Tightens his arms around Sean, lets himself rest his cheek against the top of Sean's head. "Your dad loved you," he says into Sean's hair. He's shocked by how loud his voice is, by how unconvinced he sounds - Jesus Christ, he thinks, I'm useless at this, I can't - but Sean goes still for a second, and then he gives a loud, wet sigh.

"I know," he says, real soft, into Tim's chest. "Fuck, I wish I coulda told - " His voice cuts out, but Tim's known him long enough he can hear the words anyway, without Sean saying a damn thing.

"He knew," he whispers. "He knew, Sean."

Murphy takes a deep breath. "Yeah," he says softly; then, after a while, "I'm okay, Tim."

"Yeah?" He doesn't want to, but he lets go, lets Murphy sit up, get himself together. "I'll - I should go, then, I'll be - "

The touch on his arm is warm; soft, a little hesitant, but it's there, a request all on its own. "Don't," Murphy says, so quiet Tim almost doesn't hear it.

"I - okay." He sits back against the cushions and waits, wonders what the fuck he should do. He feels like an asshole for even thinking it, but this isn't how it's supposed to go. He can't take this - this fumbling, this helplessness, this knowledge that no matter what he does it won't be the right thing, won't be enough -

Motion at his side. Sean's inching close again. Tim shifts, turns toward him, lets him in; lets Sean rest his head on Tim's chest, drapes his arm around Sean's shoulders, feels Sean's hand resting warm and soft on his stomach. "Go to sleep," he whispers, because he doesn't know what the fuck else to say. "It'll be better in the morning, I promise."

Murphy must be far gone enough that he just doesn't hear the lie, because he nods against Tim's shoulder and sighs, big and deep and almost relieved, like he knows everything's going to be okay, like he knows he's safe. Like he finally knows someone gives a shit. McManus squeezes his eyes shut, and he doesn't let go.


End file.
